Save the Muppets
Save the Muppets was an effort to bring attention to a move being made by the Walt Disney Company which called for the casting of multiple performers for the core Muppet characters. Background In the fall of 2005, the Muppets Holding Company held open auditions for puppeteers, casting alternate performers for the main Muppet characters. In October, regular Muppeteers Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire were replaced on the Movies.com webseries "Statler and Waldorf: From the Balcony," with alternate puppeteers taking over the roles of Statler and Waldorf. Muppets Ahoy!, a live shipboard stage show incorporating, debuted on the Disney Cruise Lines in 2006 and featured alternate puppeteers performers for the main Muppet characters, including John Kennedy, Victor Yerrid, Drew Massey, and Brett O'Quinn. In 2009, Kermit the Frog was performed by Artie Esposito during an appearance on America's Got Talent, the MTV Video Music Awards and the first day of the D23 Expo singing "The Rainbow Connection." Steve Whitmire commented on the alternate recasting in an interview on The MuppetCast. Fan campaign Fearing that the core Muppeteers would be replaced by a team of alternates, a group of Muppet fans started a fan campaign, Save the Muppets. The campaign was organized by Kynan Barker in August 2005, and used the slogan "one Muppet, one voice" to oppose the idea of multiple performers for the characters. Aside from building awareness to the issue, they campaign organizing letter-writing efforts and gathered signatures on an online petition in hopes of reversing Disney's plans to cast alternate performers. Over 3,600 signatures were collected on the petition. As of January 2008 the campaign web site is no longer on-line. Current position In an interview for Tough Pigs, Steve Whitmire explained that the situation resolved itself, stating: Whitmire also reiterated that Disney's desire of using multiple performers for the Muppet characters was a thing of the past in an interview with ''The MuppetCast. Media coverage thumb|300px|right The campaign was referred to in a March 2006 article in an Australian newspaper, The Courier-Mail about the Sesame Street "Healthy Habits for Life" season: In an interview for the TV Land Awards, Steve Whitmire and Eric Jacobson speak in detail about the importance of an individual to the performance of a Muppet character. :Steve Whitmire: I'm Steve Whitmire, I'm the performer who does Kermit the Frog. :Eric Jacobson: Yeah, and I'm Eric Jacobson, and I perform Miss Piggy. :Steve Whitmire: Each character is performed by a particular person. Jim Henson performed Kermit for thirty-five years before he passed away in 1990. I've been consistently the only Kermit since that time, and Eric -- :Eric Jacobson: Yeah, and with Frank Oz's characters, I've been performing them since he's gone off to directing movies and such. :Steve Whitmire: If you play my voice next to Jim's voice, they're not the same. They're very close, and the attitude is very close. And because I had the experience of working with Jim very closely, and knowing him, I think I gained some insight into where this character came from, from within Jim. So the number one goal in trying to continue a character like Kermit was making sure the character was the same and consistent, but didn't become stale and just a copy. We wanted him to continue to be able to grow a bit, but also have this foundation of where Jim started...We've always been dubbed the 'Muppet performers,' and it involves acting and it involves the puppetry, and all those skills combined. :Eric Jacobson: It's not like animation where the voice is something separate from the animators who animate the character... I grew up watching the Muppets and was a rabid fan myself, and to carry on this legacy is really important to us. See also * New York Fashion Week -- Kevin Clash performs Miss Piggy External links * Save the Muppets (via archive.org) * The Petition Site - online petition * The Courier-Mail - "Me no eat cookies" * "Just One Kermit" ToughPigs.com editorial on the issue Category:Muppet Fandom Category:Rumors Category:Behind the Scenes